Lisa in the Jungle (Misadventures of Gaspard and Lisa)

Lisa is not one who likes to be outdone. When her classmates return from summer break with exciting stories about their vacations, Lisa decides to regale them with her own vacation story—a trip to the jungle to visit her Uncle Paul who raises panthers and leopards! Lisa enthralls her audience with tales from her amazing jungle adventure, until one of her classmates blows her cover when he asks her how he saw her at the community pool every day over the summer if she was in the jungle.

With a snappy text and irresistible illustrations, Lisa in the Jungle is sure to charm anyone who ever wished they had a more exciting summer vacation.

Lisa and Gaspard--the canine Curious Georges of Anne Gutman and Georg Hallensleben's lovely series--travel around the world getting into all kinds of scrapes. Or do they? In Lisa in the Jungle, Lisa doesn't really travel to the jungle. She makes the whole story up because she's jealous of her friend Gaspard who got to go sailing while she stayed home and swam at the community pool all summer. But what a story it is! Her uncle Paul picks her up in a private plane to take her to his tree house, which is guarded, of course, by two gigantic gorillas. He has an anteater instead of a vacuum cleaner and a parrot for an alarm clock. Hallensleben's gorgeous, color-saturated paintings depict Lisa's action-packed "jungle adventure," complete with elephant-riding and panther brushing. Fortunately, class resumes just as Lisa's classmate asks her how she managed to be in the jungle and in the community pool at the same time... (Ages 4 to 8) --Karin Snelson